


The Truth of Truths

by blackidyll



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), London Spy, SPECTRE (2015)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:57:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5862763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackidyll/pseuds/blackidyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For weeks, Q has no idea who the man with a permanent bed in MI6 Medical is. </p><p>Well. More that he doesn’t quite understand the significance of Alistair Turner, why MI6 decides to keep him within headquarters instead of transporting him to another facility, one more suited to caring for a coma patient. </p><p>Then M gives Q orders to find a program created by a certain MI6 cryptanalyst, a program now in the Security Service’s possession, with strictly worded instructions to scour it from existence. </p><p>And Q understands. </p><p> </p><p>A London Spy/James Bond crossover where Q and Danny are entirely separate people and they lead their lives as they did in the series and the movies. The key here is that Alex works for Bond and Q's MI6 - the one portrayed in <i>Spectre</i> and headed by M(allory).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth of Truths

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot express how much the end of London Spy (the flashback at the end of episode 5, in particular) shattered me. Say what you want about the coherency or logic of the plot, there is absolutely no denying how attached - and invested - I've become to Danny and Alex as characters, and to their love story. 
> 
> They loved each other. _They loved each other and it was real._
> 
> It can't end like this. And since I'm a writer - it doesn't have to. 
> 
> All of London Spy canon applies, with one slight divergence; characterizations of the Bond characters include what is shown in Spectre.

For weeks, Q has no idea who the man with a permanent bed in MI6 Medical is.

Well. More that he doesn’t quite understand the significance of Alistair Turner, why MI6 decides to keep him within headquarters instead of transporting him to another facility, one more suited to caring for a coma patient. Q had run facial recognition scans to pull the agent’s file, idly curious after he’d walked past Turner’s ward a few times – internal Intelligence branch, highly secretive, little to no contact with Q Branch. A cryptanalyst, which Q respects, being something of a codebreaker himself. Turner works with mathematics, Q in programming, and both of them are prodigies in their respective fields at a very young age, although Turner had a much more straightforward path to MI6 than Q did.

Of course, Turner’s career end might echo Q’s tempestuous recruitment to MI6 if he doesn’t wake up. Turner had been drugged into a deep coma and then – according to some very discreet, very quietly whispered rumours – locked into a chest to be left for dead before a Double-O agent extracted him. Q finds a number of newspaper articles about it and gives it up as a lost cause; he knows how much of what is printed in the papers is actually true. The article about Q’s flat the night of his recruitment said that it was a crate of illegal firecrackers, bought for Guy Fawkes Day. That story had been an outlier for having such memorable details, a concession made to Q’s youth; it’s hard to cook up a story about gas leaks when Q didn’t even have a working kitchen at the time.

Q wonders what mission Turner was running, which organization or enemy he had been up against, for the government to concoct such an elaborate and fantastical lie, to decide he’s better off dead in the eyes of the public.

Then M gives Q orders to find a program created by a certain MI6 cryptanalyst, a program now in the Security Service’s possession, with strictly worded instructions to scour it from existence.

And Q understands.

\--

Q is in Turner’s medical room taking blood samples and fingerprints – MI5 had taken all sorts of biological data from the man after drugging him, and it’s much more convenient to use Turner than to attempt to hack through the biometric safeguards himself – when Turner’s hand twitches in Q’s.

Turner’s heartrate stays steady, but there might be a spike of brain activity. Q doesn’t know how to interpret the machine readouts beyond that – he’s not a doctor.

It happens on and off, and Q finds himself at Turner’s bedside more often than not, laptop in tow. It’s partly for a change of pace – Turner’s room is tranquil the way the main observation lab most certainly is not, and the sound of Turner’s slow breathing is a welcome change from the near imperceptible hum of systems in Q’s private office.

The other reason is that with all of the Double-Os out on missions Q can concentrate fully on finding all traces of Turner’s lie detection program, and it’s both a strange sort of incentive to work faster and deference to the man to do it from his hospital room.

Q is destroying what has to be a significant portion of Turner’s life’s work, after all. The amount of data that went into it, the hours and hours and hours of refining the research method, of coding the program – that research is something Turner would cling to with his life; had clung onto, apparently. He’d almost died for it.

He’s grimly navigating around a tricky firewall in MI5’s servers when Turner’s hand twitches. Q ignores it – it’s a normal enough occurrence now, and he’s concentrating so hard that he nearly startles out of his skin when a hand falls on his knee, fingers scrambling feebly for purchase.

Freezing, Q glances up at Turner’s face, where his eyes are opened to slits, eyelashes fluttering madly as he tries to fight all the way awake.

Q shoves his laptop behind him and reaches for the call button, but Turner’s grip turns vice-like on the fabric of Q’s trousers.

Turner’s first word clicks painfully in his throat, dry. He swallows several times, and then rasps out a single name. “Danny.”

Q blinks.

Turner’s eyes open further, and then it’s like a switch flips in them. His eyes flash wide once in fear, the haziness erased by panic, and he manages a stuttered, “No, you’re not him” before he’s scrambling desperately at the IV, battling the sheets and weakened muscles and growing all the more agitated for it.

Q spends most of his time surveying things from a distance or dealing with stoic agents who won’t go to Medical and has exactly zero experience handling something like this, but he grabs at Turner instinctively, catching Turner’s wrists before he can rip out the needle. The machines around them are beeping frantically and Q has to fight to keep Turner down, his glasses knocked loose when he jerks his head sharply away from Turner’s frantic struggling.

“Turner, you’re in MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross – the Medical department. It’s secure here.” His words do nothing to calm Turner down, so Q simply raises his voice a notch louder and says firmly, “We know what MI5 did to you.”

That catches Turner’s attention. Q can see the wheels turning behind the man’s eyes, trying desperately to think things through despite the disorientation – was it MI5 or MI6 that caught him, and is this all just another lie, an act to catch him off-guard?

The best solution against distrust is to feed them facts.

“We know about the program you created, the research you were doing on speech patterns and the correlation with lying. I’m in the process of destroying all of it.” Q carefully doesn’t mention anything regarding being locked in trunks. “MI5 wanted to kill you for it, but you’re MI6’s. That’s the only reason you’re alive. Do you understand?”

Turner has gone reticent now, his chest heaving with exertion but all his limbs slack. He nods once, and there’s something lost in his expression when he looks at Q.

“I’m going to let your hands go. Don’t rip out your IV, you’ll cause more damage than good. All right?”

Turner nods again – his eyes keep flicking away and back like he can’t stop himself.

Q lets Turner’s wrists go slowly. Turner stays put.

Deciding to stick with his usual modus operandi when handling a mission – which is to narrate most of what he’s doing to the agent in question – Q tips his chin at the door. “There are medics outside your door right now. All MI6 personnel. I’m going to let them in, and then I’m going to call M. He will talk to you eventually. Not today. But eventually. Understand?”

Turner doesn’t nod this time. “Who are you?”

There’s such a maelstrom of emotion in his voice that Q knows at once that this is a man far too used to control at all times – once that’s shattered, he’s just left flailing in the water. _Danny_ , Turner had said; Q’s clearly not him, and that seems to have broken Turner more than anything else.

“I’m the Quartermaster.” Q holds up the official MI6 badge he normally leaves clipped to his belt before he drops to one knee to retrieve his fallen glasses. “Head of Q Branch. We have little contact with the Intelligence codebreakers; at most, you would have heard my voice over a line.”

Q pushes his glasses back into place and turns away, and Turner makes a choked sound of protest that he very quickly cuts off. When Q glances back, Turner’s face is completely stoic.

The medics are standing just outside when Q opens the door, miraculously trusting the situation to him – Q can’t imagine Turner’s reaction if more people swamped his room during his panic attack. He steps to one side to let them in, keeping his head turned away, but Q can feel Turner’s stare like a palpable touch.

\--

M has words with Turner; no one knows the details of that discussion, but Q gets some indication of it second-hand. Turner is to stay put in Medical for the rest of his recovery, and his single task is to spare Q no details when it comes to the lie detection program. Q’s doing well enough tracking down all traces of it on his own; he’d flinched MI5’s mastercopy and promptly corrupted it to make it unusable, and Q finds no reason to go down to Medical to bother Turner now that the man is conscious.

Except Medical keeps calling him.

“I have an entire division to run, equipment to design and missions to handle – what makes you think I have time to accompany an agent through recovery?” Q protests.

His favourite medic – considerably less favoured, at this moment – just pins him with a baleful stare. “M has orders for you to work with Turner on some top priority mission or other, hasn’t he? So go in there and work – he’s so much more cooperative after you’ve dropped by. Quiet, but cooperative.” And when Q opens his mouth to argue, she pointedly adds, “And you come down to Medical to sit with the Double-Os all the time.”

So for half an hour every shift Q goes down to Medical with his laptop, and tries to ignore the staring.

Turner doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask any questions, not about how he survived, not about the work, and nothing about contacting his family and loved ones. When he’s asleep, he has terrible nightmares, full of wordless screaming and thrashing. When he’s awake, he’s still like a broken doll. The medics tell Q that Turner follows instructions but spends most of his time gazing at the ceiling. Q wishes he’d do the same when Q is there.

Q should be used to surveillance by now except Q’s normally the one watching, not the one being watched. It doesn’t help at all that he knows Turner’s only staring at him because Q reminds him of someone else. It’s as though there’s a ghost hovering over Q’s shoulder, and Q hates horror stories.

“Will you give me any markers you used in your code that will help me identify your lie detection program?” Q finally asks, just to break the silence.

Mutiny flashes through Turner’s eyes, the first real sign of emotion Q has seen since Turner woke up from the coma. But then it fades away just as quickly, and he nods.

Q gives him a tablet – he doubts Turner can navigate a pen and notepad at the moment – that has been gutted of all functionality and connectivity except for a simple notepad app, and turns his attention to coding something that would detect and catch anything containing Turner’s markers. Q can deal with the Security Service. He’s going to need to do much more if he wants to prevent Turner’s program from hitting the cyberworld.

The longer Q codes, the less Turner stares at him. It’s a win-win situation for all.

Turner’s recovery is slow, and when he finally reaches more lucid hours compared to unconscious ones his expression remains constantly shuttered like he can’t bear to show any emotions and yet can’t quite reach the state of singular detachment so common to intelligence agents. The previous stillness gives way to a bleak, restless loneliness that makes Q’s teeth ache – Q has his own loved ones that he misses and constantly worries over, a perpetual nagging buzz at the back of his mind, but he’s never seen anyone fall to such depths the way Turner does.

The medics give Turner paperbacks and decks of cards and an entire book of Sudoku that sits untouched for days until Q walks in one morning and Turner is fast asleep, his pen on a half-finished puzzle on the last pages of the book. He blinks awake immediately – field agent-like reflexes, although Q knows that Turner has never been out in the field – and for a moment his gaze is vulnerable, searching, before he blinks again and turns away. When he meets Q’s eyes again they’re steady, if still closed off.

One day, Q walks in with a cat carrier. Turner eyes it with an apprehension that grows steadily more alarmed when Q coaxes Tabby out, gathering her up in his arms so she can butt her head affectionately against his chin.

“This is Tabby,” he announces, and taps lightly on her nose before extending his hand to point at Turner, to direct her attention to him. “Tabby, this is Alistair Turner. Play nice, please.”

With introductions done, Q pours Tabby into Turner’s lap, and the other man freezes so stiffly that Q’s almost surprised he’s still breathing. Tabby, who is the most sweet tempered and gentle cat Q’s ever seen and whom Q brings to Q Branch because she’ll play quietly with her toys and _not_ chew on all the dangling cables, stares up at Turner and then promptly curls herself up on Turner’s stomach, purring away like a rusty machine.

Turner’s eyes widen even further, and Q reaches over to scratch Tabby’s ears in demonstration. Tabby’s purrs double in intensity, and Q gives Turner a pointed look before stepping back. Hesitantly, Turner brushes the tips of his fingers against soft fur, feather light, until Tabby butts her head up into his hand.

“Tabby?” Turner asks faintly.

“Short for Tabitha,” Q says. “My partner will be back in the city soon and while we love the cats, I think he’ll enjoy spending time with me without having to vie with the cats for attention.”

Turner’s eyes flick up and then immediately flick down.

“This is just for a few hours,” Q continues. “One of the medics will pick Tabby up at the end of the daytime shift so you don’t have to worry about taking care of her. She won’t bother you much, really. Mostly she’ll treat you as a convenient heat source and nap or purr on you.”

Turner stares down at the cat like he’s discovered a puzzle that thrills and confuses him at the same time, and his hand is very gentle when he strokes Tabby’s back.

When he looks up at Q, he asks a personal question – the first since he’d woken up – although it’s not the one Q expects at all.

“Do you have a brother?”

Q tilts his head to one side. “No. I’m an only child.”

“I see.” Turner’s voice is emotionless as usual, but his eyes tell a different story.

“It’s true,” Q says. “But I suppose you’ll have to decide whether you believe me.”

That night, Q abandons all his MI6 work and goes on a hunt for his doppelganger.

\--

Q is quite appalled at what he finds when he runs a search on Daniel Holt. Not what shows up on Holt himself – the official electronic profile paints a picture of a lost young man plying himself in sex and drugs to starve out the loneliness, habits that had tapered out about ten months ago – but by what he finds through unofficial channels. Highly suspect arrest procedures, a distressing medical report, all sorts of surveillance on Holt, on his person and on his computer systems, and plenty of evidence that MI5 have been harassing Holt in order to get at the locked cylinder hanging around his neck. Then, the charges mysteriously dropped by the police department and Holt’s ex-MI5 friend dead – a murder set up as a suicide.

MI5’s security protocols are top notched; Q is simply better.

He digs even further, hunting out more than just the damned lie detection program this time, and unearths the records of MI5’s first trial of the program – zoomed in footages of Turner’s face, the facial and speech pattern analyses running in the background, how it had summarized four key statements Turner had uttered and labelled all of them lies.

Q is weary and pale by the time he ends his search, but beneath the discomfort is a thin thread of anger. Turner is a tortured, traumatized man that is at least safe within MI6’s headquarters – Holt doesn’t have the luxury of such connections. Q could go to M, make a case for taking Holt into protective custody – Q can make an educated guess at what Holt’s locked cylinder contains – and wait for it to go through official channels. Instead, he turns to the Double-O agent that M had sent to pull Turner from MI5’s clutches.

“Daniel Edward Holt,” Q says, and then he gives Bond everything – the lie detection program Q had been tasked to thoroughly destroyed; all of MI5’s footages on Turner, how they’d used the program against its creator, and then all the acts MI5 had taken against Holt.

“I had to break Turner out of that antique chest,” Bond says. “And then the Security Service goes and puts another body in there instead.”

Q glances down at his tablet, displaying the exposé on Alistair Turner’s supposed deviant sex life by his boyfriend Danny Holt. This particular article is horrifyingly titled ‘The Spy in the Box,’ made even more so now that Q knows that that part of the article is completely true.

It had been a small chest, barely enough to contain a man of Turner’s stature.

“Because of Holt,” Q says.

“Because someone, possibly Holt, might have a copy of Turner’s research, and MI5 is stupidly indiscreet,” Bond corrects.

“They did terrible things to him,” Q says. “This article is the first of it. The slander and the lies. And then they escalated.”

“They should have just killed him,” Bond says clinically.

“Bond.”

Bond meets Q’s gaze, unflinching. “MI5 locked Turner in the trunk – drugged and slowly suffocating to death. They needed to make an example of him to prove to all the foreign intelligence agencies how seriously they regarded the situation, to prevent the major nations of the world from banding together against us. M still went right up against his counterpart in MI5 after I got Turner out.” He reaches out and taps Q’s laptop, a battered and sticker-covered unit that is more technologically advanced than ninety percent of Q Branch’s systems. “For M, losing a mind as brilliant as Alistair Turner’s is unacceptable.”

“So, stage Turner’s passing and let the world think he’s dead,” Q says, nodding. It’s a common enough tactic. “But why something so sensational? And why go so aggressively after Holt if they already have the lie detection program in their grasp?”

Bond doesn’t answer, and Q feels a shiver go down his spine. He has watched Bond tear into enemies over surveillance cameras and witnessed his agents do terrible things over the course of their duties, but he’ll never be able to quite emulate the thought processes they must make, how they can block off empathy and approach a situation in a purely tactical manner, cold and clinical. Bond has figured out why the Security Service took the actions they did, and the fact that he doesn’t want to tell Q speaks volumes.

“The most significant mistake MI5 made is to use the program they condemned Turner to death for as proof against the man himself. Especially when they took the program for their own use instead of destroying it as agreed.” Bond goes to his feet like a liquid shadow. “I presume M doesn’t know about those footages.”

“Not the ones of Turner, no. I’m not sure how he found out that MI5 still had the program. We had Turner in our custody for weeks before he gave me my orders.” Q watches Bond gather his gun and silencer – definitely unsanctioned, but Q can deal with the fallout if Bond discharges a weapon while off-duty in London – and when Bond shrugs his jacket into place Q holds out a phone, one of his own.

Bond pockets it without comment. “You’ll clear our entry into headquarters?”

“I’ll be watching you all the way.” Q tips his head towards his laptop. “But no earpiece. Holt is perceptive.”

“As he should be, if he wanted to go up against the Security Service.” He pauses by Q’s chair. “He looks just like you.”

Bond’s voice is even, and he looks at Q like Holt's resemblance to Q has no bearing on why Bond would agree to this.

“I know,” Q says. “I can understand why Turner acts so strangely around me now.”

Bond touches Q’s fringe, curls his fingers around a loop of hair – Q feels a ghost of warmth from the proximity – and then he sweeps from the room.

Q raises one hand and touches the same curl of hair, lost in the moment until Bond appears on the street level camera feeds, and then he turns his attention back to his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard.

\--

Danny Holt is nothing like Q.

The similarities, at first glance, are uncanny. They have similar facial features, the sharp cheekbones and strong jaw and a wild shock of curly hair, although Q’s is much better maintained. Holt even has green eyes, but the resemblance ends there. Q appears just a year or two older, although perhaps it’s the way he carries himself, steel in his spine and authority in his voice like he owns the world. Q’s fronts are polished to a shine, and although his smiles are quite endearing James knows he’s fully capable of burning the world to ash and salting the earth after.

Holt’s smiles are fragile things, automatic like a defence mechanism, and he carries his heart entirely on his sleeve. He’s well aware of it but he does it anyway, like a pigeon that stands its ground, stubbornly refusing to take flight against a threat until the last possible moment. He looks at James, his lips twisting away from the polite smile before settling into a thin straight line. He wears the locked cylinder openly around his neck now, a subtle defiance, a _fuck you_ to all who have eyes to see it.

The train station is deserted; Hold had driven, his car – an inheritance – parked nearby. James had parked further away.

Holt speaks in rhythmic cadences, like a poet on a stage. “Are you going to finally put a bullet in my head, or should I expect another pill in a sweet?”

“Neither,” James says. “I just want you to come with me.”

“A taxi cab with no door handles on the inside? I’ll pass.”

Holt’s clutching his car keys in one hand, although he doesn’t have any of the keys arranged between his fingers as a weapon. But if James comes too close, this time, Holt would fight.

MI5 made a mistake with Holt, in setting up a death so theatrical that it would be better suited to a movie or an overwrought novel. James understands the rationale behind it – there are murders where death isn’t the end goal, where something else is supposed to be wrung from the spectacle of it all.

A man stuffed into an antique trunk and left to asphyxiate to death, set against the background of a sex attic – that’s drama and sensation. It’s a scare tactic, meant to flush a very specific type of person from hiding or to cause that someone to spook and spill their secrets, to make careless, panicked mistakes.

Instead, it just made Holt dig in deeper. He’s malleable charcoal compressed into crystalline graphite now.  

“I’m MI6,” James says, and Holt’s eyes flick up, his attention fully caught now. “I didn’t know Turner personally, but I’m familiar with the work he did. A cryptanalyst.”

“Why,” Holt says, a flat statement. “I have nothing else to lose. You’ve taken everything that mattered away from me except myself. Why should I give that to you?”

“What did Turner’s mother tell you?” James asks, because Q’s been feeding him information via text messages the entire way over.

“The truth,” Holt says shortly. “She wouldn’t give me anything else.” He gives a short, near inaudible laugh, bitter. “You don’t have to worry about her going to the newspapers.”

James takes a moment to work it through. Frances Turner, formerly affiliated with MI5, there to coax her son into making promises his heart doesn’t believe in and to witness MI5 turn the lie detection program against its creator before she’d been dragged away.

James had come on the scene a while later, after MI5 had mostly cleared out.

“Her accounts would be accurate,” James says, and Holt closes his eyes. They flash back open a moment later though, and James lets his mouth tick up in a half-grin. He suspects Holt would be able to tell, quite accurately, if he tried to hide it. “But what if that’s not the whole truth? The world continues on, even after she’s left the building.”

Holt lowers his chin like he wants to break eye contact, like he wants to protect himself from a blow. “I don’t want hope,” he says, and there’s something raw in his voice now, devastation seeping through. “The lies – sometimes, I even understand why they’re necessary – but I _don’t want them_.”

“It’s fact.” After all, James had dragged Turner, unconscious but still breathing, back to MI6 headquarters himself. “If you have nothing to lose, then you have no reason not to come with me. And if I’m telling the truth – then you have everything to gain, don’t you.”

Holt’s prospects don’t look good; he’s shattered and traumatized, his closest friend and mentor dead, tested positive for the HIV virus, although James knows Q will order another blood test to be done completely in-house, because tampering the results to create a false reading is one thing and deliberating infecting someone with the virus is another. Holt has lost everything but his spirit – his eyes smoulder the way embers burn cold, only temporarily dormant – but despite all the lies and the horror of their circumstances, James thinks Holt might be happy just to have Turner back.

Holt watches him for long minutes. James stares placidly back, and when Holt climbs to his feet, his fingers worrying at his car keys, James turns and heads back to his car.

Holt follows him.

“Where are we going?” Holt asks, as James starts up the engine.

“Vauxhall Cross,” James says. “MI6 headquarters.”

Holt doesn’t bolt. He just buckles the seatbelt in place with an air of finality and stares straight ahead. James gives him the space of silence, and guns the car.

\--

Q waits for them in the secondary parking bay, the one Q Branch uses to deploy their customized automobiles, his laptop bag slung over one shoulder and a parka in his hands. He’s had about a day to get used to the idea that Holt looks very similar to him. But Holt doesn’t, and so their first meeting starts with Holt ducking out of the car, looking around the darkened space warily and startling when he sees Q, and then again when he registers Q’s features.

Q adjusts his glasses self-consciously and glances at Bond, who is looking between them with an unreadable expression on his face.

“I’m quite estranged from my family,” Holt says, “But I’m pretty sure Mum didn’t have any other kids. She hated one – she’d never have another.”

Q smiles despite himself. “There are no blood ties between us, Mr. Holt. There’s been some research done that suggests there are roughly six people in the world that through genetic probability look very similar to each of us; I suppose we’ve both found one of ours.”

“Where to?” Bond asks – he’s languid, looking perfectly at home in the darkness, but he speaks with his in-mission voice, focused.

“Medical,” Q says, and he and Bond share a significant look before Q turns back to Holt. “You can call me Q. There’s someone down in our Medical ward that you should speak to. I’ve diverted all surveillance along the route we’d be taking, but there’s always a chance of someone crossing our path.”

He holds out the parka, and after a moment Holt takes it. It’s one of Q’s own and makes Holt look even more like his twin, but with the hood pulled up it obscures Holt’s features enough that he shouldn’t be identified at first glance.

“Surveillance,” Holt says. He meets Q’s gaze steadily. “I thought you both worked here.”

“What Q means is that our superior has no idea who you are and what we’re doing.” Bond tips his head toward the camera embedded in the ceiling above them, which mostly serves as a distraction from the other surveillance systems hidden around them. “And we’ll like to keep it that way for a while longer.”

The journey to Medical is a silent one. Holt doesn’t look around; he keeps his eyes trained on Bond’s back, and Q can’t tell if he’s just numbed into complacence or if his quietness is a result of a new nihilistic streak, the equivalent of walking into the lion’s den with his eyes open. Medical is an oasis of sterile calmness and the ward Turner is housed in even more so, and finally some unease seeps into Holt’s body language, especially when they have to pass through the gated entrance, an additional safeguard to secure MI6’s most valuable agents when they are at their most vulnerable.

The secure medical ward, when they all pass safely through, is deserted, partly due to the lateness of the hour and mostly because of some roster rearrangements on Q’s part. Bond catches Q’s gaze. “You’d best go ahead first.”

Q draws a quiet, preparatory breath. Turner’s room looms up ahead and Q strides right up to the door, knocking on it in his usual way and waiting for the acknowledgment before opening it.

Bond had positioned himself in front of the door so that Holt must necessarily stand to one side, out of the sightlines of anyone inside the room, and so it only takes a moment for a white and grey streak to dart out of the room.

Holt shrinks back, wary. Q, used to such antics, just braces the door open with one hand while Bond blithely scoops up the purring cat curling around his ankles.

“Not now, Tabitha,” he murmurs, slanting a look at Q.

“Nurse’s station,” Q says. “The cat carrier should be under the desk.”

Bond turns away immediately, Tabby still purring in his arms. Q glances at Holt, trying to think of how to salvage the moment, when Turner calls out from inside the room, “Did Tabby escape, Quartermaster?”

Holt freezes.

The next moments are a blur of motion.  

Holt stumbles away from the door, looking half a second from just turning around and outright bolting, and Q darts forward on instinct, snagging Holt’s wrist and holding on tight. Holt jerks back violently and the strap of Q’s laptop bag slides off his shoulder to catch at his elbow. The jolt of pain only makes Q cling on tighter.

“Danny,” he says, and Holt stops struggling, stunned, staring at Q with liquid eyes. Q takes a step forward, still holding doggedly onto Holt. “Danny. That’s what he calls you, although he only said your name once, when he first woke up and was very disorientated. You should know that he tries very hard to protect your identity.”

“I can’t,” Holt whispers. “I can’t—if this is another lie—”

It’ll break him. Q knows that feeling intimately. There is only so many times a shattered glass can be mended before the pieces become too small to put back together again.

Q tightens his grip, not to keep Holt in place but serve as an anchor, to give Holt something to focus on. “It’s him. Danny, he’s right inside this room.”

A hand reaches out past Q and snags the laptop bag, lifting its weight off Q’s elbow. Bond – Q would recognize that watch anywhere – drifts slowly into view, careful not to crowd Holt.

“This is the truth,” he says, and Holt’s eyes slide shut, squeezed close as if he’s in physical pain. “This is what happened after Frances Turner left the building. Don’t you want to know?”

Holt is trembling like a leaf in heavy wind, but his eyes are fatalistically resolute when he opens them. Bond gives Q a sharp nod, and Q lets go of Holt.

Holt stays put.

“Q,” Turner says, and there’s a quiet note in his voice that’s evident even when muffled by the half shut door. “Is everything all right?”

“It will be,” Q calls back, keeping his eyes on Holt as he steps back towards the doorway, letting Bond slide the laptop bag entirely off his arm. “We’ve brought you a visitor.”

He leads Holt into the room, where Turner is sitting up in his bed, another book of Sudoku and one of Tabby’s toy mice lying on the sheets.

Through sheer luck, Holt still has the parka hood pulled over his head – their scuffle earlier hadn’t knocked it off – and it dips low over his eyes, the fur trim further obscuring his features. Turner stares at him, his face very carefully blank.

Holt has gone complete still beside Q, no longer trembling one bit, and he doesn’t react at all, not even when Bond slips into the room behind them.

“Q,” Turner says again. “Who—”

Holt reaches up and jerks the hood off in one forceful movement, and Turner’s voice dies in his throat.

The moment stretches out, tension thick and cloying. Turner’s eyes are locked on Holt; they never stray to Q, as though he knows in his heart that the man standing in front of him is truly his Danny, and doesn’t need a confirmation otherwise.

Holt’s breathing is harsh, the shaking back, and his voice is utterly shattered when he finally speaks the name.

“Alex?”

Turner’s eyes are so wide the whites are showing all around them; his muscles have locked up completely from terror, but slowly, slowly he lifts a hand towards Holt, palm up and fingers spread.

Holt makes a choked noise deep in his throat and stumbles forward, almost smashing his knees into the bed. But when he reaches out in turn his movements are slow, hesitant, his hand hanging suspended in mid-air a hairsbreadth away from Turner’s, as if afraid contact would break the dream, confirm that it’s all an illusion.

Turner pushes that last distance forward and their fingers touch, lacing immediately together and latching tight. Holt’s knees buckle and he collapses into the visitor’s chair that Bond just manages to shove into place in time.

Turner’s face, normally perfectly stoic, is stricken now, and Holt is making quiet, high pitched noises like a wounded animal, halfway towards hyperventilation with how fast he’s breathing, gripping Turner’s hand like it’s a lifeline. When he raises his face to look at Turner, however, Holt’s eyes are bloodshot but entirely dry, as though he has gone so far past the moment of fear and grief that no tears would come.

Q doesn’t realize he’s clutching at Bond’s jacket sleeve like a child – because they are discreet and they rarely ever touch while at headquarters – until Bond pulls free and curls his fingers around Q’s hand, lifting it to press a kiss to the knuckles. He squeezes Q’s hand once, and only when Q squeezes back does he let go.

“We need to talk,” Holt finally says, his voice hoarse with emotion. “But not now, okay?”

Turner nods jerkily, like he’s utterly afraid to take his eyes off Holt.

“Touching as that may be,” Bond breaks in, and Q startles despite himself, “you don’t have the luxury of time. You need to come to a decision on your future.”

Immediately, as if in one mind, Hold and Turner draw close together, their bodies aligning to face off against Bond and Q, their hands pulled close between them.

“Q and I have invested too much effort bringing you together to separate you now.” Bond doesn’t quite roll his eyes and no exasperation actually makes it into his voice, but Q’s spent a long time observing him – he knows how to read the subtle cues. “But we did so on our own initiative; M is currently unaware of Holt or of his presence here, but that won’t remain so for long.”

Turner’s face goes still, contemplative, and he nods his understanding.

Q picks up the conversation thread. “Your discussions with M are entirely private, but I haven’t heard any decisions regarding your status other than the stipulation that you help me destroy all traces of your program.”

Holt tenses at the mention of the program. Turner turns immediately to him and a moment later realization sparks in his eyes. Holt has pieced together the majority of the situation – what Turner does for a living and all the events encompassing the lie detection program – while Bond and Q have the benefit of Bond’s involvement in the extraction and Q’s extensive research. But Turner knows nothing of what has happened in the weeks past nor what Holt has had to survive through, not with the news blackout M had placed him under.

Turner is keenly aware of that now.

“No,” he finally says. “M hasn’t yet come to a decision on what he’ll do with me once I’ve recovered sufficiently.”

“Good.” Q takes a deep breath. “This is my proposal. You will give up working on any of your prior research and accept a transfer to Q Branch, where you will report directly to me. You’ll continue working for MI6 on sanctioned, pre-approved work. No side projects of your own, at least not for now, and nothing like your lie detection program.”

There’s still pride in Turner’s spine; he straightens and stares Q in the eye. “You’ve already destroyed all of it. I helped you.”

“And the Security Service took care of the rest.” Q tilts his head towards Holt, at the locked cylinder hanging openly at his throat, and Turner turns his gaze immediately on Holt, worried. Holt stares steadily back at Q.

“I’ve destroyed or corrupted all of MI5’s copies and I have protocols in place for if the program ever surfaces in any of the government’s internal servers. But I’m a coder myself, Turner. I too have a gift for intuitive leaps in logic. The research, the program, that’s just a result.” Q taps at his temple. “The idea, the true source of it will always be here. And there’s only one way to get rid of it.”

He lowers his hand. “So you have a choice. You can choose to abandon your research and work with Q Branch and try to build a new life with Holt, or you can leave MI6 and get yourself properly killed.”  

“Is that a threat?” Turner asks, his voice low.

“You’re in Intelligence,” Bond cuts in abruptly, “but you’ve never been out in the field, have you. You left your partner with no real safeguards or the knowledge that would allow him to take informed steps to protect himself. MI5 took full advantage of that. ”

Turner goes deathly pale and Holt’s shoulders rise defensively.

Bond continues on. “Our duties in our line of work dictates that we maintain that level of secrecy. But Holt has been an open target for MI5’s machinations. You need to understand that the odds are against you and that only the protection of an equally powerful agency can fully counteract them.”

The tension in the room is palpable, but a single movement cuts right through it – Holt pulling his and Turner’s clasped hands towards his chest, protective.

“Why did you help me—help us, then?” Holt asks. “Why take a risk on us when we have such obvious targets painted on our backs?”

“I’m merely completing the orders I’ve been given.” Q gestures at his own throat, and Holt gets it immediately, his free hand curling automatically around the locked cylinder, drawing Turner’s eyes to it.

“You – they – the program’s been deleted,” Holt says cautiously.  

Q shakes his head. “Not thoroughly. I know MI5’s technology and remote wiping leaves traces. I need to clear all of it.” He pauses, and then adds, softly, “I’ll have no further use for it after I’ve wiped it clean.”

Holt hesitates, and then, in one quick movement, tugs the leather cord over his head, pulling the locked cylinder free. He clearly can’t handle it single-handed and just as clearly absolutely refuses to let go of Turner’s hand, and he stares down at the cylinder until Turner reaches forward. But instead of letting Turner unlock it, Holt smiles, fleeting, and pushes the cylinder into Turner’s hand, arranging it so Turner holds the device level with his fingers. Then, Holt spins the number dials, no hesitation, certainty in his movements like irrefutable truth.

The cylinder clicks open, and Turner’s breath catches.

Holt looks up at Turner, their gazes locking for long moments. Turner’s eyes are wide, his lips parted on a shocked inhalation, and Holt drops the cylinder on the sheets, reaching forward with his free hand to touch Turner’s cheek, practically clambering onto the bed so he can press their foreheads together, his eyes closed.

Turner keeps his eyes open and fixed on Holt, his breathing uneven.   

Bond is the one who brings Q the cylinder, plucking it out from the sheets in one efficient movement so he doesn’t disturb the couple. He hands Q both the cylinder and his laptop and stays close when Q turns the device around to look at the unlocking code – 000001.

It’s an interesting choice for a passcode; the cylinder holds more significance than just being Holt’s last memento of Turner, then. Q is careful when he connects it to his laptop, and he works quickly, scanning the drive and wiping out all the leftover fragments of data.

“It’s done,” Q announces out loud, and it gives Holt and Turner enough time to pull slightly apart when Q turns towards them, holding out the cylinder. Turner’s head is tipped down, half pressed into Holt’s hair and neck, and Holt’s entire body is curved towards him, protective and tender at the same time; their hands are still clasped together. Holt doesn’t move at all, just turns his head and reaches out, and Q passes his laptop to Bond and stands so he can bridge the distance.

Holt rolls the cylinder carefully in his free hand, contemplative. Then he looks up at Q and Bond. “The two of you are together.”

Q shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s hard to control his own instinctive shock at hearing it stated out loud, especially by someone who has only known them for hours at best. It’s a statement, not a question, as if Holt knows it as fact.

“Yes,” Bond says, not a flicker in his expression or voice.

Turner watches all of them quietly, although his gaze lingers on Bond – after all, the Double-Os’ reputations precede them.

"How do you navigate the lies, then? You’re both MI6, but—” Holt pauses. “I imagine it’s still hard to get away from the lies.”

Bond inclines his head, deferring the question to Q.

It’s a serious question, asked with just the slightest hint of desperate curiosity in it. Q thinks on his answer for a long while.

"I'll omit information, hide details,” Q says at last. “If necessary, whole truths will never pass between my lips or from my fingers. But I won't lie. Secrets and silences and obscuration – those are my strengths."

After a moment, Holt speaks, and although his voice is soft it's full of gravitas.

"You mean that."

Not _that's true_ , or _you're telling the truth_. Meaning something and keeping to the promise of it are two different things, after all. Q does mean it. That doesn't mean he'll never tell a lie, if circumstances called for it.

"I do," Q says. He glances at Bond. "But not him. It's a necessity for him; It keeps him and very many other people alive."

"Q's right," Bond says. "I lie all the time."

“But not when it comes to the things that truly matter,” Holt says resolutely, and both Bond and Q go very still. “Misdirection, yes; hiding the truth, yes. But if it comes down to it, you’ll choose silence over lies.”

Holt’s gaze cuts over to Q. “Why did the two of you bring Alex and I together? Because your agency takes care of its own people – and so do you.”

Q very pointedly does not look at Bond, not that it would make any difference at this point. Turner's stare is a familiar weight – that assessing, empty gaze that is so characteristic of intelligence agents. But Holt's is another story all together, and not simply because his face is practically a mirror image of Q's. His stare is haunting, a search that does not rely on facts and logic but on intuition – something that cannot be defended against.

Of the two, Danny Holt might be the more dangerous one.

“Regarding your proposal,” Turner says, breaking the moment. “You think M will accept it.”

Letting out a quiet breath, Q turns his attention to Turner. “I think M understands that I too am someone who has to constantly draw a line between thinking up world-changing, revolutionary ideas and turning them into reality.” Q tips his head towards the battered laptop in Bond’s hands. “I’ve had a lot of practice in restraining myself, or at least at listening to the advice of others. And the rules have changed, haven’t they.” He nods at Danny. “I know you started the project before you met Holt, but I think your priorities are different now.”

“What binds us to this agency, to the duties we put our lives on the line for?” Bond smiles. “A sense of purpose, patriotism for Queen and country.” He looks at Q. “Challenges, access to resources and the world’s problems, conundrums for that brilliant of mind of his to work and tinker with.” He turns back to Turner. “And you. You only joined MI6 because you were expected to. But M can read the scorecard and he’ll be able to see, quite clearly, that other things motivate you now. Love, after all, is quite the driving force.”

Turner’s next question is immediate, like he doesn’t care about anything else. “What about Danny?”  

“You’ll both need new identities,” Q says, “And although you’ll be based in London – M won’t accept not having you under direct scrutiny – you’ll need to be relocated to a more secure residence. We’ll send an overt warning to MI5; they have absolutely no leg to stand on the moment they took your program and decided to use it for themselves. If they take exception to MI6’s demands and go after either of you again, I believe M would quite likely take the battle all the way to the top.”

There’s a carefully hidden smile on Bond’s face, half feral and entirely approving. “You do realize,” he says to Turner, his tone misleadingly offhand, “that you don’t need a program to end the lies you’ve been forced to give out. You can simply tell him the truth now, edited down though that might be. Holt is entirely aware of the circumstances and it’s too late for M to oppose him being privy to your life as a spy. If he protests, he should take it up with MI5 for being so terribly indiscreet.”

Turner absorbs this quietly, and then he turns to regard Holt.

“I won’t do this without you,” he says, and it’s clear what he really means – _I won’t make any decisions without your consideration_ – a clear statement that Turner will move with Holt as one unit, that he won’t make any move that separates him from Holt. “If we accept this, you won’t be able to escape this world.”

Holt regards him for a long moment. “I’m already part of this world,” he says, and it could be a rebuke or an accusation except for how gently Holt says it, the way he summons a small smile and pulls their linked hands closer. “If you are part of this world, then so am I. And we’re both going in with our eyes wide open now.”

The emotions that flit through Turner’s eyes are almost too overwhelming to witness – hope, relief, fear, resolution, and love, so much love that it’s evident even if his expression doesn’t change much. It’s an intensely private moment, and Q gets to his feet, his heart squeezing in his chest.

“That’s settled then,” he says, and joins Bond at the doorway. “I’ll go talk to M. You two can stay here for now; this location is secure.”

Holt nods, but it’s clear his attention is entirely on Turner.

Q meets Bond’s gaze, and they both slip from the room, shutting the door quietly behind them.

\--

It’s automatic for James to clear his surroundings when he steps into a different space; Q, used to this and understandably affected by their discussion with Holt and Turner, is quiet when they shut the door behind them.

James isn’t entirely unaffected himself. A second chance, an opportunity for a happier future – how often does that happen in their line of work?

The secure ward is still deserted, so James draws closer to Q to hand him back his laptop bag.

Q smiles and takes the strap, but his eyes are uneasy when earlier he’d been the image of confidence, able to sway decisions through the conviction of his words alone.

“What do you see,” James says, “when you look at them?”

Q shivers, and he leans ever so slightly into James’s side, just enough that their arms barely brush against each other. “It could have been me, in Turner’s shoes. I’ve coded my fair share of destructive programs, software so dangerous that they made me destroy them all when I was recruited. I wonder where the line is, at what point they think we’re more valuable alive than dead.” He meets James’s eyes. “Turner is a mathematical genius. And they tried to asphyxiate him. In a trunk. For his partner to find.”

“I don’t think they ever meant to kill Turner,” James says.

Q flicks him a look, the question unspoken.

“If I were MI5 and I had MI6’s most brilliant codebreaker in my grasp, a mind that only appears once every few decades, I wouldn’t throw him away. I’d keep him intimidated, lash constantly at his spirit. When he inevitably breaks, I would show him footages of his lover, harassed and hounded and yet faithful through it all. And then I’ll tell him that his precious lover is only alive by my graces, and that that lover’s continued survival depends entirely on his cooperation.’

“Of all the questions and ultimatums MI5 heaped on Turner, the one that affected him the most was never seeing Danny again. He would give in, almost immediately.”

Q’s breathing has gone dangerously shallow, and he’s staring out into the distance in a way that suggests he’s thinking dark thoughts. James reaches out to touch Q’s fringe, lightly brushing his fingers through soft curls, just to bring Q back to him again.

Q blinks and his eyes focus back on James, and his lips lifts in a small involuntary smile.

“It’s a good thing my partner isn’t easily intimidated then, and is quite capable of taking care of himself,” Q says quietly.

James smiles back. “Likewise.”

The words ring a little hollow – there is no conceivable to safeguard against all threats, no precautions they can take against a sniper shot to the head – but it’s the sentiment that counts. They would fight ferociously, and in their own ways they would take down a significant number of the enemy with them.

“They’ll be all right,” James says.

Q glances at the closed door. “Yes, I think they will be.”

They’ll need to go their separate ways soon – Q to M’s office, to table the proposal regarding Turner and Holt, James remaining at Medical to watch over the couple, just in case. But for now, for this moment, James thinks of Turner and Holt and how close they’ve come to despair and simply draws Q close, disregarding all their unspoken boundaries and rules for conduct at work—

And Q lets him, holds him closely back in turn.

**Author's Note:**

> In order for this fix-it to work, I needed an organization that might oppose the actions taken against Alex and Danny in the series. I don't think it's made clear which agency goes after Alex at the end of episode 5. Wikipedia says it's MI5, and I'm inclined to go with that. Frances was former MI5, after all, and to run such an elaborate operation like what they did up in the attic within London would require at least the Security Service's approval and cooperation. 
> 
> In Spectre, M is incredibly protective of his agents. He gets presented clear evidence that his Double-O has disobeyed explicit orders and that his most trusted subordinates - Moneypenny, and later Q - have gone behind his back to aid Bond, and his first reaction is not to berate them but to get incredibly angry on their behalf, because _his_ people were being spied on by their own government. So yes, M and MI6 would want Alex's program to be destroyed. All the foreign intelligence agencies sign off on this. But M would not let one of his own die for it, and he certainly wouldn't endorse letting MI5 do it either. 
> 
> And then MI5 (or whoever is handling the situation at the end of episode 5) goes ahead and uses the lie detection program, against all agreements. And once they find that the program works, I doubt they would let it go. That, M would wage war on. Hence, Q's orders to hack MI5 and destroy all traces of it.
> 
> I also wondered why the governmental powers didn't just quickly and quietly kill Danny. They clearly have the means - look at Scottie - but instead they chose all these convoluted methods. The same with Alex's death; there must have been more to their actions. I really do think there's a possibility that Alex is still alive in the canon universe. But since we'll likely never have more episodes, I will settle for Danny and Alex being alive and together in fanfiction.
> 
> \--
> 
> _Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,_  
>  _And tell them: and the truth of truths is love._
> 
> \- Philip James Bailey
> 
> \--  
> Some extras for this verse ♥
> 
> [a-forger-and-a-point-man](http://a-forger-and-a-point-man.tumblr.com/) asked me to share some 00QAD headcanons based on this verse; you can read those headcanons [in this post.](http://blackidyll.tumblr.com/post/160300553195/re-if-you-poke-me-i-will-spew-headcanons-about)
> 
> And have [some ramblings](http://blackidyll.tumblr.com/post/158280118755/the-essential-00qad-reading-list) about how this verse can be crossovered with Kingsman: The Secret Service.


End file.
